American Express: Card of Evil
If I had an American Express, I'd cut it up.
Say that you are one of those fortunate people who manage to pay off most of their credit cards every month. Then imagine your surprise when one of your cards is cancelled for no apparent reason. That's exactly what Farooq Firdous experienced. Last summer, Firdous, a Pakistani who got his green card in 1997 after 11 years of legal residence in the U.S., received a phone call from an American Express representative regarding a credit card he held. The rep requested that he send the company a mountain of paperwork: three years of tax returns, six months of bank statements and a job verification letter.
His wife, Yasmin Khan, who is Indian, received a separate phone call that same day for her own AmEx credit card. In each case, the rep told them they had 15 days to submit the paperwork or their cards would be cancelled. Firdous and Khan called back later – twice – to ask reps if they could send the request in writing. They refused.
Firdous and Khan were confused because they always paid off their cards on time. Firdous called the company back again. "I told them strictly, 'You're probably discriminating against minorities with Muslim names,'" he recalls. He and his wife refused to submit the documentation, which on at least three different occasions company reps said they needed for "security reasons."
A few weeks later, each received a letter saying his or her credit card was cancelled: "You did not provide the banking information, financial statements, income tax return, and/or identification documents requested." The letters also stated that the reasons for cancelling the account included "information received from a consumer reporting agency," hinting that credit problems might be to blame.
But Firdous' credit is excellent, according to the credit report he subsequently obtained. (After his AmEx card was cancelled, he immediately applied for and received a Citibank Mastercard.) The status of his closed AmEx account reads "Paid/Never late."
The government's post-9/11 infringements on civil liberties have been well documented and debated. But what happens when private companies take the fight against terrorism into their own hands? If you're Pakistani, or Muslim, or both, you might just find your credit cards cancelled, despite the good credit you've worked hard to build.
City Limits has found 12 cases in which Muslims, nearly all Pakistani- Americans, with good credit, all of whom claim they made no unusual or exorbitant charges or late payments, had their American Express credit cards cancelled. We found no cases of non-Muslims' credit cards being cancelled outright, or even non-Muslims who were asked to send in paperwork for existing accounts.
Excerpt from an article on AlterNet. Link via Amp Ersand.
If I had an American Express, I'd cut it up.
Say that you are one of those fortunate people who manage to pay off most of their credit cards every month. Then imagine your surprise when one of your cards is cancelled for no apparent reason. That's exactly what Farooq Firdous experienced. Last summer, Firdous, a Pakistani who got his green card in 1997 after 11 years of legal residence in the U.S., received a phone call from an American Express representative regarding a credit card he held. The rep requested that he send the company a mountain of paperwork: three years of tax returns, six months of bank statements and a job verification letter.
His wife, Yasmin Khan, who is Indian, received a separate phone call that same day for her own AmEx credit card. In each case, the rep told them they had 15 days to submit the paperwork or their cards would be cancelled. Firdous and Khan called back later – twice – to ask reps if they could send the request in writing. They refused.
Firdous and Khan were confused because they always paid off their cards on time. Firdous called the company back again. "I told them strictly, 'You're probably discriminating against minorities with Muslim names,'" he recalls. He and his wife refused to submit the documentation, which on at least three different occasions company reps said they needed for "security reasons."
A few weeks later, each received a letter saying his or her credit card was cancelled: "You did not provide the banking information, financial statements, income tax return, and/or identification documents requested." The letters also stated that the reasons for cancelling the account included "information received from a consumer reporting agency," hinting that credit problems might be to blame.
But Firdous' credit is excellent, according to the credit report he subsequently obtained. (After his AmEx card was cancelled, he immediately applied for and received a Citibank Mastercard.) The status of his closed AmEx account reads "Paid/Never late."
The government's post-9/11 infringements on civil liberties have been well documented and debated. But what happens when private companies take the fight against terrorism into their own hands? If you're Pakistani, or Muslim, or both, you might just find your credit cards cancelled, despite the good credit you've worked hard to build.
City Limits has found 12 cases in which Muslims, nearly all Pakistani- Americans, with good credit, all of whom claim they made no unusual or exorbitant charges or late payments, had their American Express credit cards cancelled. We found no cases of non-Muslims' credit cards being cancelled outright, or even non-Muslims who were asked to send in paperwork for existing accounts.
Excerpt from an article on AlterNet. Link via Amp Ersand.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home